What would you guess are the most popular names parents give their babies these days? What do you think is the most popular boy name? (Jacob.) What do you think is the most popular girl name? (Isabella.)
Second place for boys is Ethan (which, by the way, shot up to #2 from #62 15 years ago), followed by Michael, Jayden, and William.
Number two for girls is Sophia, followed by Emma, Olivia, and Ava.
I notice that the boy names all have more consonants than vowels, while all of the girls’ names either have more vowels than consonants or at least the same number of vowels and consonants. Are consonants more masculine and vowels more feminine? Should I be concerned that the name Daniel does not have more consonants than vowels?
With Jacob and Isabella at #1, I know someone is going to ask, so I’ll tell you: Edward is currently the 136th most popular boys’ name, which puts it behind Diego, Isaiah, and even Jaxon (spelled with an ‘x’).
Parents choose baby names for all sorts of reasons. Some are, obviously, inspired by movies and other media. Others pass down names of family members to the next generation. And some try for something creative, innovative, and unique.
Like Jaxon with an ‘x’.
In the Bible, it is common for a person to receive a new name at a significant, life-changing event. You’re familiar with how Abram became Abraham … how Saul became Paul … and we just heard how Jacob became Israel.
Jacob’s naming came after he wrestled with an unknown (at the time) stranger. And what a strange story it is. Jacob had been in a mental wrestling match with his brother Esau for twenty years. Now he was about to meet his older, stronger brother face-to-face for the first time in two decades, and he was a little nervous, to say the least: Would Esau still hold a grudge after all these years?
Not only was Esau bigger and stronger; his household was much larger than Jacob’s. Indeed, Jacob hears that Esau was on his way to meet him with an army of 400 men.
In his wrestling match with the stranger, Jacob prevailed, but his hip was dislocated. His adversary asked Jacob to release him, and Jacob said, “Not until you bless me.” The man did bless Jacob, and gave him a new name – Israel – and then Jacob comments: “I have seen God face-to-face.”
So, all along the man was God-in-disguise? Who knew?
The name Israel was then passed down through Jacob’s many descendants, who become the nation of Israel: God’s own people.
But why “Israel” for a name? Was it a family name? Was it popular in those days? Did God, perhaps, just like the way it sounded?
The Bible explains that the name Israel was chosen because it means “wrestles with God” or “struggles with God,” which is what Jacob did. But is that a good thing, to wrestle with God? Is that a good name for God’s people?
The prophet Hosea wasn’t so sure. He described this incident; you tell me if Hosea thinks wrestling with God is a good thing.
Hosea says: “The LORD is about to punish Jacob for all his deceitful ways. Before Jacob was born, he struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even strove with God. He fought with the angel and prevailed, he wept and sought his favor.”
He wept and sought his favor … sounds almost as if Jacob isn’t merely asking for a blessing, but that he’s asking for forgiveness from this stranger whom Hosea refers to as an angel.
Interesting.
What’s even more interesting is that the nation or Israel – which, in Hosea’s time, meant the northern kingdom – seemed to agree with Hosea’s interpretation of this story, but Judah – the southern kingdom – did not.
Personally, I see a lot of wrestling going on here. Hosea wrestled with the Genesis story, trying to make sense of it. Then Israel and Judah each wrestled with Hosea’s interpretation of the story – and came to opposite conclusions.
Israel – one who wrestles with God … seems like an appropriate description. But still…
Wrestling with God means, by definition, a struggle. What a name to give someone!
If it were me, I might have chosen, well, Daniel. The name Daniel means “God is my judge,” or, “judged by God.” Sounds better than “struggles with God.” And easier, too. If I just let God judge, then I don’t have to wrestle or struggle. God can judge what’s right and wrong, and let me know. I don’t have to figure it out for myself. No struggle. Easy.
Or maybe I would choose another good Hebrew name, Bethuel: it means, dweller in God. That sounds OK. Or Ezekiel, which means God strengthens. Or Gabriel: God is my warrior. Or Ariel: Lion of God. Beautiful, isn’t it? Or Immanuel, which means God is with us.
But no. Jacob gets the name Israel. One who struggles with God. One who wrestles with God. A whole nation gets that name. God’s chosen people get that name, Israel. Strugglers with God. Wrestlers with God.
Now I know people who wrestle and struggle with God, and let me tell you, they’re not usually the sort of people we think of as spiritual heroes. They often lack confidence. They often have doubts.
Someone once said to me, “I don’t think I belong in church.” I asked why. They said, “Because I have a lot of questions about God.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Well, questions about what God is like. I’m not confident in my faith like all those church-goers. I don’t think that God always acts the way the church says he does. When I try to pray, I have no idea who or what I’m praying to.”
You know what type of person that is? That’s a person who is poor in spirit. The strange thing is that Jesus offers a special blessing to the poor in spirit. He says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
Sometimes I’ll ask that person, “What sort of God are you trying to pray to?” and they say, “I don’t know.”
So then I ask, “Well, what do you think this God should be like? And they’ll describe for me a judge, a king, maybe a shepherd, but always a person or being separate from themselves, a person or being that is somewhere across the galaxies, many light years away.
That’s when I might admit to them that I have a hard time praying to a God like that as well. I find it difficult enough to communicate over a phone line that goes from my house to a neighbor three blocks away. So praying to some God across the galaxy: that’s a problem.
And while it’s true that God is a judge, a king, a father, a shepherd … the fact that there are so many of these names for God suggests that these are all metaphors. The Bible says all that, but it also says that God is the one “in whom we live and move and have our being,” which I take to mean the great creative lifeforce which surrounds us, encompasses us, and dwells within us. That’s a very different God than one who lives somewhere across the universe.
Thinking about God in this way does not end the struggle. It takes the struggle from “out there” and brings it “in here.” It takes it from being a superhuman struggle to a human struggle, which is not to say that it makes it any easier to understand. Understanding humanity, understanding our own human nature, is certainly a big enough struggle for a lifetime.
At our Wednesday night dinner – I sure enjoy our Wednesday night dinners. It’s just a small group of us who come, but there’s always room for more…. I mentioned to those who came this past Wednesday a book I just checked out from the Dana library. It’s called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes.
Chapter one is about the law of balance, and it talks about finding the balance between good and evil, light and dark, aspects of every human.
Batman is called the Dark Knight, because his role as protector of the downtrodden and upholder of justice is the result of shadows and fears: “memories of a tortured childhood shattered by tragedy, the fear of being isolated, and the angst of feeling purposeless.” Wrestling and struggling with this anguish – that’s what makes Batman who is he.
Likewise, Spiderman has a dark side. At one point, a dark symbiote (or symbiont, to use the proper term) latches on to Spiderman, bringing out his darker impulses, making him arrogant, vengeful, and selfish. He wrestles with this inner darkness and eventually overcomes it, but it still remains, and the struggle continues. Without the struggle, Spiderman would not be who he is.
In some ways, our struggle to understand who God is, is a struggle to understand who we are. Is God a vengeful, angry, jealous God, prone to violence, wiping out entire cities? Or is God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love?
Are we ourselves able to resist the temptation to violence, to resentment, to jealousy and anger? How shall we acknowledge this dark side within us and wrestle with it so that we might more fully live in the light?
We learned at VBS about Peter, the disciple who was constantly in a wrestling match with Jesus and with himself. Peter would say one thing, bringing praise and blessing from Jesus, and in the very next moment say something else that would cause Jesus to curse Peter and refer to him as Satan.
What we learned about at VBS was the struggle Peter endured the night of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion. Three times Peter denied knowing Jesus. Then he wept bitterly at his giving in to the dark side.
Yet Peter became one of the great leaders of the early church; but this did not mean that his wrestling days were over. Once, he had a vision encouraging him to go to a group of Gentiles, enjoy fellowship with them, dine with them, and share with the good news about Jesus. But Peter, like all of the very earliest followers of Jesus, considered himself a good Jew, and good Jews were to have nothing to do with those other types of people. If even said so in scripture, to not eat with or associate with people who were unclean.
And yet, Jesus had, on occasion, done just that: associated with unclean people.
Peter wrestled with this. He wrestled with himself. He wrestled with God. The vision came to him three times before he was able to accept it; three times before he was able to put aside what he had learned; three times before he was able to put aside his resentment, his parochialism, his prejudice, and welcome these people who were different.
Israel.
Wrestles with God.
It’s a good name.
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